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The thing here,
more than compare and determinate wich ways of aikido is effective or not in the real life, is how uke energy blends with nageīs center.

If you stop the flow of your energy (Just to test nage technique) the you are already in the duality of the situation.
When you understand that, then your work as UKE become very important, you don't need to make fakes UKEMIS, but keep the moovement ALIVE.
Keeping the flow and the intention to enter all time to nagesīs center will develop your HARA, when you do this for some time then your keiko become a MISOGI.

Many people criticise our way to be UKE,
I say....why practice aikido just as nage? you`'ll be wasting the half time of your practice.

The thing here,
more than compare and determinate wich ways of aikido is effective or not in the real life, is how uke energy blends with nageīs center.

If you stop the flow of your energy (Just to test nage technique) the you are already in the duality of the situation.
When you understand that, then your work as UKE become very important, you don't need to make fakes UKEMIS, but keep the moovement ALIVE.
Keeping the flow and the intention to enter all time to nagesīs center will develop your HARA, when you do this for some time then your keiko become a MISOGI.

Many people criticise our way to be UKE,
I say....why practice aikido just as nage? you`'ll be wasting the half time of your practice.

Manuel:

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. In my way of thinking, ukemi has three levels. All of them involve keeping a energy connection to the nage. At the first level, the connection is used to safely roll, land,.... from a technique. The next level up is to be able to use that connection to neutralize the nage's energy so that the technique cannot work. At the highest level, the connection is used to seamlessly reverse technique.

As I see it, the problem with that video is that the uke will never be able to advance to higher levels of receiving energy. Worse than that, the connection at an energy level is being used to fall in an unrealistic and collusive manner. In order to advance your training, the fundamentals of movement remain the same. Keeping your center, your balance, your posture are all prerequisites to be able to use energy to do more than just fall on the ground.

My training and my teaching all involve both the uke and nage having to be at work full-time in training. This can be done so that Aikido remains a MARTIAL art and not devolved into some movement-based, sensitivity training in which collusion leads to delusion which leads to somebody getting hurt. Reality is the ultimate trump card. If what you do is training to create something other than what could be called a martial art, then label it as such. For the life of me, I cannot understand the purpose of training someone to respond with an energy connection in a way that is unrealistic and therefore dangerous. You could train safely with that same level of connectedness without having to take dives.

I understand all that you said, I kept this martial spirit in my keiko, but I also investigate the moovement, the connection of each hara.
And if you dont let go all, you could never be one with the universe.
I think O sensei was traying to teach a way of trasmite that, and that way took the form of aikido, but we cannot forget what was the original purpose of this art.

Maybe examining the root...what is a martial art? What has it been? What is it today? What might it be tomorrow?

Understanding that we live in a constantly changing universe, should a given martial art - or anything - remain unchanged?

For me Itry to keep it simple. Way of harmonizing with the energy of the universe. Aikido, a way to reconcile the world.

If it's about kicking ass and being "real" with strikes and throws, then what is it? Sounds like plain old bar fighting to me.

How real need one be with a strike? "Hey Dude! Look at that! A bird on the dojo ceiling!" Bam! I just broke two of your ribs with my fist. Being a nice "soft" uke, I didn't rupture your kidney.

Is that what it's about? Because something carrys a label as a "martial art" does that mean it need be something more than an art of awareness?

The art of being prepared to kick ass in an alley someday when I'm attacked? The art of GUN would suffice for that.

Reconciling the world. I don't do much reconciling when I'm busy doing damage to my fellows on this planet.

What if...what if one's aikido developed to the point where attacks simply did not manifest. They just didn't. Would that be mystical? Is quantum mechanics mystical?

Was the concept of a round earth once mystical?
Or a planet which orbited the sun versus the other way around?

In my aikido training every uke and every nage is different. Part of the art of awareness for me is knowing this. And knowing that every moment in time is different. Certainly, as uke and nage, I intend sincere strikes and throws.

On some occasions it is obvious to be slow or to be fast. Sometimes I falter, I may read a situation incorrectly, but that's ok because it's training and not fighting. The training is my study.

But gauging my aikido or that of anyone else's based on some measure of physicality? Nope. That's not part of reconciling the world in my mind.

Back a number of years ago during my...ahem...uh, adventurous youth, my buddies and I used to measure everything on physicalities. It didn't matter one bit whether you cold cocked someone or they sucker punched you. Whovever ended up on two feet was the winner and was "right". And the other? Loser and was "wrong".

I know that the translation and has been argued at length on this site and I don't claim to have anything more than an absolute beginner's understanding of the Japanese language, but a Japanese friend of mine was recently talking about the kanji for . She is not an Aikidoka but she is a native Japanese speaker and she translated it as joining. My American sensei spoke at length about how in Aikido it is both Uke and Nage's job to maintain connection. He also said that he heard from bothYamada sensei and Chiba sensei that even when he was old and frail that O sensei would give his ukes some nice friendly atemi if they did not maintain contact. Maybe I am being too literal in my thinking and there is some kind of ki connection being made in this no touch stuff, but how can there be a joining of energies or connection if there is no contact what so ever?

Don't misunderstood takeda sensei exercise, he does this just as an excersice. His practice is strong, and soft and I am sure if you don't take ukemi you will be hurt.

If you notice, some Shihan works look very similar.

Take a look on Endo shihan latest work.

I think that after many years of practice you start to develop such connection than you dont need anymore to take off uke's arm.
They feel the attack and the moovement before it manifest in a fisical way.

Firts we start with the SOLID way, then you technique become LIQUID and then GASEOUS.

But the principle is the same, aikido is a tool to feel the true spirit of Kanngara. Wich is the goal of many DO arts.

Don't misunderstood takeda sensei exercise, he does this just as an excersice. His practice is strong, and soft and I am sure if you don't take ukemi you will be hurt.

The real problem (for me) here is the assumptions going into this kind of demonstration/exercise/shenanigans. Takeda Sensei's students have a HUGE amount of faith in their teacher. A good friend of mine once experienced a nearly hysterical tearful rant from one of his senior guys in North America when someone at the dinner table referred to him simply as "Takeda" and not "Takeda Sensei". This senior guy went so far as to say that they (all of Takeda's students) not only owed him for what he had taught them about aikido, but for *Everything* good about their lives. Now, if you line up someone with that level of devotion 20 feet away from Takeda Sensei and then have Takeda Sensei wave his hand, they probably will feel something. The test is not whether Takeda Sensei can affect a non believer at that distance, but whether *the student* can feel a supposed shift in energies that (they believe) Takeda Sensei is projecting. It's the Emperor's new clothes. If all of your friends and seniors are falling over themselves because they can feel the wave, are you going to be the one who isn't developed enough to sense the power of your teacher? No way, not with the level of devotion you see here.

Now I have felt Takeda Sensei's waza. He has impeccable timing and body structure. I have even been 'no-touch' thrown by him, but we were centimeters away, not feet and it was the same kind of psychological/physiological experience I have had with other very good sensei. By that I mean that they used reflex arcs and other real physical phenomenon to simultaneously put me in weaker and weaker positions while increasing their own potential physical advantage. Then the hammer drops and you find that you can either take the atemi that's coming or you can fall NOW! That's all real understandable stuff. Orgone rings and ki projections across rooms are not in my worldview.

Watanabe sensei has been famous/notorious for years in the Aikikai world for his no-touch demonstrations. But until 2008, he was the only senior shihan who did them. I remember being really dismayed seeing Takeda's recent demos where he went over to Watanabe territory.

I don't know anything about Takeda sensei but I did take one of Watanabe sensei's classes at Hombu and he did no touch jedi force throws the whole time. The students did more or less "regular" technique but the people I worked with seemed to have absolutely no substance behind their waza. Sensei never threw me in class so I can't say anything about the feeling behind his throws. I am afterall a no consequence white belted ikkyu who was just visiting for the day. However, on previous visits to Hombu I did get thrown by the likes of Osawa, Miyamoto, and Masuda sensei's.

I don't want to discount the skill of Watanabe Shihan though, because I occasionally visit the dojo of one of his former students in Nagoya, and he is quite strong( Although he did also study with Chiba sensei for 5 years), and one of his students said that when he took ukemi for Watanabe sensei it was the same as taking ukemi for Sawada sensei. He's the shihan in Nagoya.

I don't know anything about Takeda sensei but I did take one of Watanabe sensei's classes at Hombu and he did no touch jedi force throws the whole time. The students did more or less "regular" technique but the people I worked with seemed to have absolutely no substance behind their waza. Sensei never threw me in class so I can't say anything about the feeling behind his throws. I am afterall a no consequence white belted ikkyu who was just visiting for the day. However, on previous visits to Hombu I did get thrown by the likes of Osawa, Miyamoto, and Masuda sensei's.

I don't want to discount the skill of Watanabe Shihan though, because I occasionally visit the dojo of one of his former students in Nagoya, and he is quite strong( Although he did also study with Chiba sensei for 5 years), and one of his students said that when he took ukemi for Watanabe sensei it was the same as taking ukemi for Sawada sensei. He's the shihan in Nagoya.

Quote:

Manuel Aldunate wrote:

What part of THIS IS A EXCERSICE you dont understand?

He doesnt do that in his waza, he make us do that and show that because he want to expand our mind and spirit beyong the Structure of it....

Hello Manuel,

I don't want to come across as unduly harsh, and each to his/her own, but I think something is rotten in the State of Denmark when these "exercises" are publicly demonstrated. Chris Moses has previously posted a video of Takeda throwing a line of his students fro the other end of the mat (in the Budokan?) And it's insulting, quite frankly, both to the audience who are "expected" to applaud something so obviously staged, and to his fellow aikidoka who are doing their best to pare back self deception through shugyo.

There is something to no touch throws as exemplified by Ushiro, Okamoto, Endo Sensei et al. I've experienced similar techniques myself. Personally, I don't think they should be publicly demonstrated either, but I accept they are valid spects of the arts,

Takeda's demonstration is something else. I've been at demonstrations where martial artsist who have dedicated decades to their arts have been followed in demos by members of the Nishino ryu, who do similar no touch things and send their students flying around the room. It's embarrassing and it cheapens Budo and the idea of recognising one's limitations and then making constant effort to improve.

I think the big question for Aikikai people is why is this sort of thing tolerated by the senior Shihan? What are the Doshu. Tada, Tamura et al thinking when this stuff is publicly demonstrated? Are the type of people likely to be attracted by this kind of demonstration really the people to carry Aikido forward?

This is really important nowadays as you have MMA BJJ on the one hand providing a reasonably healthy outlet for aggression and the competitive spirit and there is the growing availability of training in the internal aspects of the martial arts from the likes of Mike Sigman and others. I still believe Aikido and Japanese Budo has a lot to offer, but the Takeda/Wanatabe phenomenon indictates a trend towards decadence. Sorry about the rant, but it's an important debate.